Surveillance: Who’s being Orwellian?

9/11 had “profound effect” on Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., she told the Chronicle last week. To this day she has nightmares, she said, explaining why she stands behiind the U.S. government’s secret surveillance programs.

The Bush administration had similar nightmares. Fearing another massive terrorist attack on its watch, it quadrupled down on intelligence gathering programs. It employed data-gathering technology coming out of the private sector, as has the Obama administration, while the technology became ever more sophisticated,

“9/11 opened the portal for Web 2.0,” said Cullen Hoback, writer, producer and director of a documentary playing at San Francisco’s Roxie Theater Sunday and Thursday.

I agree with my Chronicle colleague, G. Allen Johnson, who called the documentary, “Terms and Conditions May Apply,” a “must see” in a 96 hours feature last week.

I talk with Hoback, whose documentary came out before last week’s NSA blowup, in today’s Bottom Line column here. He explains how the government and the tech industry together have seriously diminished personal privacy.

We look at other threats coming down the track, and identify one Orwellian action that had nothing to do with the U.S. government.